I missed this when this news came out a week ago. On Wednesday, March 21, a Virginia District Court Judge declined to strike the anti-solicitation ordinance in the Town of Herndon, and upheld a $100 fine charged against a man who attempted to hire someone in front of a Herndon 7-11.
This is highly relevant to the situation in Gaithersburg, which just adopted an anti-solicitation ordinance of its own. The judge in the Herndon case made it quite clear that she was only upholding the law because of the existence of a laborer center where the speech proscribed in most of the town could still take place. Gaithersburg’s ordinance will not go into effect until the County’s new laborer center — located just south of Shady Grove Road on Crabbs Branch Way — is open and operating.
The intent of Herndon’s new Town Council to find a new operator that would check the work authorization of those who attempt to use the center is an interesting and potentially problematic twist to all this. However, this issue would appear to be moot in the case of Gaithersburg’s ordinance, as I would think that no one seriously expects that Montgomery County is going to ask CASA de Maryland to start checking for illegals, or to replace CASA with another operator if (or, I think I can say with some certainty, when ) they refuse.
In any event, Herndon would appear to be having difficulty with this plan, as, according to the Herndon Connection article linked below, they received no responses to their January RFP. Personally, I find it difficult to imagine that such a contractor would have much work to do. Indeed, again according to the Herndon Connection, the lack of response was due in large part to “a lack of perceived profit” on the part of many potential contractors. I will note here that Herndon’s current contractor, being as they are a charitable organization, has no expectation of profit, either, but I guess that this is more of a factor for those organizations that would otherwise consider bidding on such a contract for which Herndon is now soliciting.
Bill Turque writes in The Washington Post: Limit on Soliciting Work Upheld:
Court Backs Town’s Effort to Restrict Day Labor Deals
A Fairfax County District Court judge upheld Herndon’s anti-solicitation ordinance yesterday, finding that the town’s prohibition against day laborers and motorists striking deals for employment on the streets does not violate First Amendment rights to free speech.
“The regulation is justified solely on the basis of these governmental interests,” Nordlund said.
Nordlund did note an ironic twist in her ruling. Without the day labor center, established over bitter community opposition by the Town Council in 2005 as an alternative to the streets for workers and employers, her decision would have been different.
“If it were not for the labor center, I would have to strike the ordinance,” she said.
Also, Scott J. Krischke writes in the Herndon Connection: Judge Backs Town:
Members of Herndon’s Town Council have remained firm in their plans to change operators of the town’s day labor site following a ruling last week by a Fairfax County General District Court judge that upheld the town’s ordinance forbidding informal employment solicitations.
Thomas’s attorney, Alexa Mosley, had argued that the ordinance was unconstitutional, as it impeded his right to free speech, guaranteed by the first amendment.
In her ruling, Judge Lorraine Nordlund stated that the ordinance met constitutional free speech requirements in that it was narrow enough as to not impede broader free speech, reflected needs for secondary public safety effects and that the speech was still legally regulated at the town’s organized day labor site.